North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Osisko Metals Inc. May 22 reported the final batch of results from the 1,031 holes completed at Pine Point since the company began its initial drill campaign at the Northwest Territories zinc project early last year.

Cominco Ltd. (now Teck Resources) mined zinc-lead ore from a series of 50 surface and underground deposits along a 60-kilometer (37 miles) corridor at Pine Point from 1964 to 1988. Osisko has identified four zones along this corridor – East Mill, Central and West zones are along one trend that runs the length of the corridor, and North zone is a roughly 20-kilometer (12.5 miles) trend that runs parallel to the Central zone.

The latest batch of results is from an additional 145 holes drilled in the L-35 and L-36 areas of East Mill, a 7,600-meter-long zone about 1,700 meters east of the existing electrical sub-station and former mill site at Pine Point.

Highlights from this drilling include:

• 13.5 meters of 9.6 percent zinc and 1.53 percent lead in EM-18-PP-209, drilled at L-36;

• six meters of 20.28 percent zinc and 5.92 percent lead in EM-18-PP-211, drill at L-35;

• 13.11 meters of 10.23 percent zinc and 9.19 percent lead in EM-18-PP-331, drilled at L-35; and

• 10 meters of 11.62 percent zinc and 2.5 percent lead in EM-18-PP-351, drilled at L-36.

The objective of the 1,031 holes drilled during Osisko's initial program was to convert unclassified near-surface historical resources into current mineral resources and to locally extend known zones of mineralization.

Based on historical drilling and 317 holes completed by Osisko, an initial 38.4 million metric ton inferred resource averaging 4.58 percent zinc and 1.85 percent lead was calculated last November.

The remaining 714 holes completed by Osisko, including this latest batch from East Mill, were not included in this 2018 inferred l resource estimate.

"With this last set of results in hand, we have completed our initial definition drilling campaign on the PPMC (Pine Point Mining Camp), which began in 2018," said Osisko Metals President and CEO Jeff Hussey. "Drilling completed to date will be incorporated into the next mineral resource estimate, slated for release in Q3 (third quarter), and we anticipate that most of the existing resources will be upgraded to the indicated category."

"With the upcoming summer season, we will embark on a brownfield exploration program at Pine Point, focused on increasing the resource base and making new discoveries," Hussey added. "We believe the property holds significant exploration upside at depth and along its 65 kilometers of strike length."

–SHANE LASLEY